What Are Your God Goals for 2018?

Losing weight, flossing regularly, spending less, getting more organized…these are among the resolutions most of us make at the turn of the year. These are all great, but do we have “God Goals”? Are the resolutions we make shaped by our own thinking or by His?

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:9

We get caught up, don’t we? It’s those weeds of the urgent, the demands of each day, the worries of the future, the desires of our worldly existence that keep our thinking trapped in a cycle of futility.

The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.

Matthew 13:22

We need to step back and look at things from an eternal perspective. Sooner than we think there won’t be any weight to loose, or teeth to save, or stuff to organize.

Lift up your eyes to the sky, Then look to the earth beneath; For the sky will vanish like smoke, And the earth will wear out like a garment And its inhabitants will die in like manner; But My salvation will be forever, And My righteousness will not wane.

Isaiah 51:6

Whether or not we are twice-born, we will face Jesus. Those of us who believed in Him in this life will look into those eyes burning with fire and experience His unfathomable love without the filters of our feelings and thoughts.

And we will be utterly and completely overcome.

Then we will fall face-down and be glued to the ground. We will be speechless.

The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Revelation 4:10-11

Oh, come let us adore Him.

Will He still be scarred from His crucifixion? Thomas put his hand in His side. Won’t those scars make us love Him all the more?

Only one thought will be in our minds: How did we express our love to Him while we were still on the earth.

While we still had the choice, did we choose Him?

I don’t know about you, but these few years I have on the earth are going to be focused on loving Him with my life.

Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.

Psalm 73:25

As we look out into the next year, we can easily see the need to focus on higher things. However, These higher things are not “performance adjustments” such as:

Overcoming anger outbursts

Becoming less lazy

Curtailing cursing and gossiping

No, this is about life lived from the inside-out. If we approach it correctly, our inside goals will take care of the outside goals automatically.

With this in mind, here are some objectives to reach for in 2018:

Awaken your heart.

Don’t let the white noise of life drone on in your mind. Kick yourself and perk up. Stop looking for a comfortable spot to take a nap, a place where you can settle in and relax your life away.

Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

1 Thessalonians 5:6

Delight yourself in the Lord.

My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand.

Song of Solomon 5:10

Our entire culture is based on “enjoying” ourselves. Resorts, spas, and cruise ships are all about engaging and feeding our senses. Pleasure seeking drives people to all sorts of extremes, such as the bungee jumping escapades of adrenaline junkies.

Every name, attribute, word, or deed of Jehovah, should be delightful to us, and in meditating thereon our soul should be as glad as is the epicure who feeds delicately with a profound relish for his dainties.

This is easy if we think in terms of Bluetooth devices. If I want to pair my headphones with my smart phone I have to make them “discoverable.” This means each one starts actively looking for a signal so they can be “paired.” If I start scanning with my cell phone but my ear phones are off, the signal is still going out, but the earphones are simply not ready to receive the signal.

God is sending out His signal. He wants to be “paired” with us, to have continual communication. All we have to do is position ourselves so we can receive His signal, it’s really that simple!

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

Revelation 3:20

Quiet your heart.

One of the last things Jesus said to His followers was:

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

John 14:1

Did you notice this is a command? It is not natural to have hearts that are quiet within us. We scrutinize and analyze and whine about almost every detail of our existence on earth, much like petulant children.

We want to know all the why’s and when’s and how’s (“Are we there yet?”). But God wants us to rest and trust.

King David put it this way:

My heart is not proud, Lord,

my eyes are not haughty;

I do not concern myself with great matters

or things too wonderful for me.

But I have calmed and quieted myself,

I am like a weaned child with its mother;

like a weaned child I am content.

Psalm 131:1-2

What will this do for you?

For one thing, when we center in on God’s kingdom, this life and the problems which assail us are put into the correct perspective. Its as if we are on the space station looking down. From that view you can’t even see a broken down car or a clogged toilet.

The Bible says we are RIGHT THIS MOMENT seated with Christ in God:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

Colossians 3:1-3

As we imagine ourselves pulled out of time into eternity the mountains of life shrink considerably.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

2 Corinthians 4:17

For another thing, when we tune in to God’s frequency, we become like Him. And what is He like? He is called:

The God of all comfort–2 Corinthians 1:3

The God of peace–1 Thessalonians 5:3

The God of love–1 John 4:8

The God of truth–Psalm 31:5

The God of liberty–2 Corinthians 3:17

Good–Luke 18:19

By sensitizing ourselves to Him, we automatically start:

Comforting others. This does away with selfishness.

Allowing peace to rule. No more profanity and habits which cover up inner chaos and anxiety.

Loving others in God’s way. We will know when to step in, what to say, what to do or not do.

Speaking honestly. If we trust Him, we don’t have to cover up, we don’t have to make others look small, we don’t have to protect ourselves from truth and justice because Jesus took our justice upon Himself.

Living free from the tyranny of destructive and distracting habits. By concentrating on who we are in Christ, we can finally realize the power we have to overcome.

The life Jesus bought for us on the cross is not just another philosophy of life. We have POWER through the blood of Christ to overcome the problems we face on this earth. We don’t have to rely on “resolutions,” we can rely on God’s PROMISES!

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

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10 thoughts on “What Are Your God Goals for 2018?”

Yes, thank you, I loved this! I, more recently than not, just discovered God & Jesus. On my own, I was not raised in any way to know about any of it. So as much as I’m incredibly anxious and willing to learn all I can, I need things in easily digestible bits to understand and stew over for a while. Almost spelled out for me, if you will. It’s all so wonderful and fascinating to me, however not being raised with it the Bible is a bit hard for me to understand. So I look to you to break it down for me & basically tell me what it says and to do I suppose . Thank you as always for your blog. You minister in all kinds of ways about life to all kinds of us mothers whether you know it or not. 🙂

How wonderful, Amy! You don’t have to worry, the Holy Spirit is a terrific Teacher (the One God sent to all of us). You are doing the perfect job of taking the simple things and meditating on them. The Bible says that it is nonsense to the unregenerated mind because these things are “spiritually discerned.” This means we can’t understand things with our puny brains, but we understand them with our born-again Spirits and then renew our minds with the Word of God so that it agrees. Here is a link to teaching that will explain what I’ve just said further: Spirit, Soul, and Body

There is a little trick to this that my kids taught me 😛 Just use Google translate and copy and paste the Spanish on one side then the translation appears on the other. I also used this for my response.